CINCINNATI, OHIO – A portrait by Matthew Harris Jouett (1788-1827) of Isaac Shelby (1750-1826), Kentucky’s first governor, bested its $75/100,000 estimate to sell for $112,500 in Cowan’s two-day American furniture, folk and decorative arts auction September 22-23. Four phone bidders competed for the painting, which opened for bidding at $45,000. After a few initial exchanges, one of the bidders, understanding the value of the painting, advanced the bid to $65,000. Undeterred, two bidders continued bidding in $5,000 increments against the bidder who increased the bid until the lot was sold to a private collector from Kentucky.

The painting had never left the Shelby family and joins a number of recent Kentucky-related successes for the Cincinnati auction house. In 2018, Cowan’s sold another Jouett portrait, this one of Henry Clay (1777-1852), who was a titan of Kentucky politics serving as Senator, Speaker of the House of Representative, and Secretary of State, which sold for $108,000. The year prior, Cowan’s achieved the second highest price ever for a piece of southern furniture selling the massive secretary desk and bookcase of Captain John Cowan (1748-1823), one of the 32 men who established the first British settlement in what is today Kentucky, for $498,750.

It was the top lot in a sale of more than 550 lots of furniture, paintings, folk art, mechanical and still banks, toys, stoneware, trade signs, advertising, that achieved a total price of $456,781.

Prices quoted include the buyer’s premium as reported by the auction house.

Watch for a more extensive sale recap in a future issue.